"Be careful," Barack jokes as they walk out, referring to David Denby's now-infamous review. This screenwriter takes it one further, having Barack explain Mookie's great act of resistance to Michelle's stodgy white boss. Seeing the first black president and first lady seated in a darkened theater as Spike Lee's explosive meditation on '80s racial relations boils over on the screen carries more symbolic weight than a screenwriter would dare invent. Michelle dismisses him as "just another smooth-talking brother" but is gradually charmed, as these things go, and though Sumpter's Michelle is a little too scolding, too much a character to be "won over" by the hero, the film sheds plenty of insight on her early life-how she kept her father's multiple sclerosis a secret, how her close family ties contrasted with Barack's far-flung roots.ĭid Barack and Michelle really go see Do the Right Thing on their first date? Yes, that's a genuine (and genuinely remarkable) tidbit of history. A young black woman at a predominantly white law firm, she's worried what the partners would think.
SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU MOVIE
(Has anyone ever wanted to see a movie about a first date that does go well? When Harry Met Sally…, which hit theaters that same summer, wouldn't have been much of a rom-com if Harry and Sally had hit it off from the beginning.) Michelle, played by Tika Sumpter ( Ride Along, Gossip Girl), is so insistent on this point that Barack's repeated advances almost seem creepy. Still, the date does not go well at first-particularly considering Michelle refuses to identify it as a date. During the church scene, he convincingly mimics the future politician's oratory gift as Michelle, wide-eyed and surrounded by churchgoers who rave about this Barry figure, silently watches. It was wise to choose a largely unknown actor for the job. Parker Sawyers, best known for his work in Zero Dark Thirty, plays this role ably: He doesn't look so much like Obama, but he captures the mannerisms-the confidence, the insatiable curiosity, that enigmatic puzzle of calm.
The film opens with a cute, young Barack smoking cigarettes and calling his grandma as he prepares for the date. Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much" is all over the radio. In Tanne's generous and romantic telling, it's enough. Southside With You, Richard Tanne's sweet, sentimental directorial debut, makes a movie out of their first date on a summer day in the late '80s: They talk, visit an Afrocentric art exhibit, talk, attend a community meeting at a church, talk, see a movie, talk some more. She was strictly focused on her career-and, anyway, a romantic relationship with a colleague was out of the question. He was a 27-year-old summer associate at a corporate law firm in Chicago, where Michelle was assigned to be his mentor. He frowns: "Uh oh."īarack Obama's early encounters with Michelle Robinson didn't go much more smoothly. "So what do you do?" Dubya asks in between swigs of beer. There's a funny scene in that film where young Bush meets a pretty woman named Laura at a barbecue. Oliver Stone's W painted the 43rd president as an entitled clown, bumbling through life until God or Karl Rove or whoever told him to run for president. John Ford memorialized Abraham Lincoln's early law career in one of his most understated films, Young Mr. Seeing the commander in chief in college, getting stoned or chasing young love is like running into your math teacher at Applebee's: You know that side of the person exists, but it's still pretty weird to see up close. Americans are fascinated by the past lives of their presidents.
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